


on the salt-burnt sands

by oriflamme



Series: stand still stay silent [8]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Against The Dramatic Backdrop of the Icelandic Landscape, But If You Don’t Run Off At Least Once To Brood, Classic Miscommunication Trope #612, Edit: Guess What. Guess. You'll Never Guess., Emotional Constipation, Grinding, Holding Hands, Is It Even A Real Fic?, Language Barrier, M/M, My Only Regret Is Not Having Lalli Call Emil A Pinecone, Neck Kissing, No Hotakainen Is Neurotypical, Non-Penetrative Sex, communication is key
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 23:37:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20629430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriflamme/pseuds/oriflamme
Summary: He wants to be cool and collected the first time he reaches out and takes Lalli’s hand in public and gestures confidently at the pastry display.Lalli yanks his hand back, eyebrows shooting together like he's offended.





	on the salt-burnt sands

**Author's Note:**

> Hover for translations.

It’s not that Lalli is delicate. Nothing of the kind. He’s just - particular. The buttons that set him off are oddly placed, compared to what Siv and Torbjörn have hammered into Emil’s head as far as manners go. It makes him come off as skittish or suspicious or completely disinterested, with no rhyme or reason. It doesn’t seem to matter how carefully Emil pays attention: he still winds up tripping and fumbling on his way to understanding.

But that’s an Emil problem, not a Lalli problem.

Probably.

-

"You're two of the pickiest people I know. Well done, enjoy your life together, good to see you again, etcetera -" Torbjörn says, halfway into his coat and eyeballing the door with the look of a desperate man.

"Yes, yes, thank you," Emil says, primly, as he hands Torbjörn the rest of his and Siv’s things.

-

He wants to be cool and collected the first time he reaches out and takes Lalli’s hand in public and gestures confidently at the pastry display.

Lalli yanks his hand back, eyebrows shooting together like he's offended.

Emil can only blink, and retract his hand, and stammer a little as he goes back to describing the display. He’s not sure whether to feel insulted or hurt or apologetic.

The latter, probably. He shouldn’t have assumed. He knows Lalli doesn’t appreciate sudden things; he overstepped. But it stings. He falls quiet for too long after, sullen and vaguely surly and excruciatingly aware of all the random people who witnessed that play out. Siv would say ‘the world doesn’t revolve around you’ and ‘none of them probably even noticed,’ but _Emil _notices. The couple holding hands as they coo over the pigeons by the bench, the two girls swinging their hands between them as they debate going into a shop across the street.

At the same time he’s aware of Lalli’s eyes on him - measuring, gauging, still narrowed in faint, guarded confusion. Emil broodingly watches the next couple who dares to walk by holding hands and sighs, and when he glances back Lalli is staring at them too, following Emil’s gaze with blank disinterest.

No. He can’t sulk long. Emil shrugs and lets it roll off him. When he relaxes, Lalli mirrors him. The next time Lalli leans in beside him to examine a display – too close in a very Lalli way, his arm warm against Emil’s and his hair right there under Emil’s nose – Emil swallows and chalks up hand-holding under the mental chart of things Lalli just doesn’t like.

He gets to have this. Anything more would be inconsiderate. Emil might slip sometimes, but this – he can’t bear to lose this.

-

Lalli rolls over and winds up on top of Emil.

This seems to be intentional.

Emil has never done this before. He’s pretty sure it shows. Lalli, on the other hand, clearly has some idea of what he wants and how to accomplish this without taking any clothes off. Which is good, since the thought of doing this without some kind of buffer against the cold air makes Emil shiver. Lalli’s hands are cold enough, slipping up under Emil’s sweater to press fingers against his waist, then higher, curving and kneading against Emil’s back. Emil twitches a little when Lalli brushes against his stomach, weirdly self-conscious of how even now there’s a softness there over any muscle. All the while Lalli maintains keen, inquiring eye contact, giving nothing else away in his expression as he waits for Emil’s input.

He doesn’t want to be desperate. Emil tips his head up and kisses Lalli, too fast and too light to even feel it properly, and then pulls back before Lalli can lose patience. It doesn’t seem to cross that line. If that line even exists. A soft, strangled noise half-escapes him before he swallows it, and he has to look anywhere except at Lalli for a second. Because Lalli definitely heard that.

There are things Emil can bluff and boast through. There are things he considers himself an expert in, with the blithe, unthinking confidence instilled by a lifetime of ‘of course,’ and ‘whatever you say, dear’s. This isn’t either of those. He mirrors the position of Lalli’s hands, over the soft wool of his sweater rather than under, because that seems safer, and hovers there, unsure.

Lalli ducks his head and kisses the crook of Emil’s shoulder and neck, the exposed skin where his collar sits lopsided. When he starts moving, his hands inch higher up, nails scraping down Emil’s back in fits and slow, shuddering starts. At some point Emil forgets to be careful. He wraps his arms around Lalli and latches on, clutching handfuls of the sweater in his fists, crushing him so close it feels like Emil can’t breathe. Anything he manages to gasp out is barely-strung together Swedish, so choked he doesn’t even know what he’s saying after the fact. Lalli bites down at least once, and Emil thinks he’s done something wrong – but Lalli just shakes his head and keeps pressing close. He mumbles something into Emil’s throat and bites again, on the good side of sharp.

When it’s done, Lalli seems content to lay there on top of him, boneless and comfortable. When Emil sets him to the side – temporarily! – to fetch a towel, Lalli tries to drag him back down like it’s the end of the world. They nearly crash on the floor before Emil succeeds in extricating himself. Lalli grumbles as he burrows back in against Emil, but seems mollified after Emil pulls the blankets up. “S’fine,” he mumbles, when Emil asks if he’s clean enough. Then he sticks his hands back under Emil’s shirt, buries his face against Emil’s chest, and goes promptly to sleep.

-

In the morning, Emil’s hair is a _disgrace._ But the discovery of the bruise on his shoulder preoccupies the time he’d otherwise use to getting his hair in order. While he frets over it, Lalli wanders in and arranges Emil’s hair for him, with a slow blink when this fails to soothe Emil’s fit.

The lines down Emil’s back are fainter, uneven. Not deliberate. Emil still jolts when Sigrun claps him on the back that day, and spends the rest of the day making up excuses for why he’s so twitchy, while the man responsible just furrows his brow and looks on like Emil is a mystery. But the next time, half a week later, Lalli tentatively kisses his neck, and glances up for Emil’s approval every time he shifts his hands.

After a month of hemming and hawing, Emil concedes that, while the marks might be a bother to cover to his own exacting standards, he likes how it feels when Lalli kisses him like that too much. It’s usually only one spot, anyway. “No scratching though, please,” he says, primly, because it’s easier to act formal than to let on how anxious it makes him to talk about any of this out loud.

Lalli nods. “I know,” he says, pointedly, and then buries his nose against Emil’s shoulder through the night, gasping and not biting even once, because he’s a contrary sort of person.

-

When Emil wakes up in the morning sun to Lalli warm in his lap again, kissing Emil with a frown of concentration and already rocking against him, languid and slow until Emil _aches_ \- he starts to get the point. But _he _would prefer to go to sleep in clean, fresh clothes after all that. Even if it means cajoling Lalli to free him each time. Lalli doesn’t seem to want sex every night - or with any kind of regularity - and no matter how much he fusses when Emil leaves he always falls asleep faster once they’ve changed. Otherwise it means a solid hour of Lalli squirming and pretending he’s not uncomfortable. It goes a lot faster once Lalli starts cooperating, wriggling out of his clothes and pulling on the new ones Emil hands him with grudging approval.

Emil still sometimes comes back to Lalli lying on the floor under the bed, or back in his own across the room. But more often, Lalli waits for him to come back, tracing Emil’s back with a knuckle as he settles back in for the night.

-

He notices Lalli staring at other people more often. It’s something Emil does – naturally, and because he trained himself into it. He notices Lalli, and tries to understand what he’s seeing.

Unfortunately, of all the people Emil could have picked, he picked one who tends to stare a _lot_. Also, Lalli draws the weirdest conclusions. Sometimes Emil thinks he makes up weird things on purpose. His expression is always perfectly deadpan, no matter what ridiculous new thing he’s decided is absolutely true about city life. Like the one about how Iceland’s horses obviously abandoned Reykjavik in a wild bid for freedom, and how Mora should shoo its weird, ugly moose out to match.

So Emil doesn’t make the connection right away when Lalli abruptly holds up a hand, still staring in concentration at something down the block. “Can you hold this for me?” he asks, perfectly vague.

Emil’s distracted by the ice cream he’s juggling. There’s really only one answer to that, though. “Oh, yes?” he replies, holding out a hand, half-expecting Lalli to pass him something.

But Lalli just slips his hand into Emil’s. His palm is dry and his fingers are callused, and Emil is struck by the horrifying realization that his own hand is sticky with melted ice cream. Lalli’s face is already in his flat, narrow squint as he evaluates this new arrangement, lingering, and Emil can _not _let this mess be the impression Lalli takes away from this. “Just a second!” he blurts out, ripping his hand away.

Lalli just stares at his own hand, mystified, as Emil frantically wipes his clean on the crumpled napkin. What he needs is a sink and hot water and soap to get himself in order, but he has none of that. When his hand is as pristine as it can get, under the circumstances, Emil sticks it back out. His face feels like it’s on fire. If that was the only chance he got – if that was it, and Lalli shrugs and goes back to eating his ice cream, Emil will never stop kicking himself.

Lalli blinks at Emil’s hand – okay, yes, Emil might have stuck it directly into Lalli’s line of sight, right under his nose – and then raises his hand to hold it again. Their clasped hands hang there awkwardly for a long, long moment before Emil realizes they’re both staring at it like a pair of idiots. He clears his throat and lowers his arm so their hands rest between them on the bench. He can’t seem to make eye contact, again; he fidgets a little while his ice cream melts, waiting on the verdict.

“This is what you do? There isn’t anything else?” Lalli asks, sounding dubious. He eats another spoonful of ice cream, contemplative.

Emil never in his life thought he’d have to justify the point of holding hands. He squeezes Lalli’s hand carefully, to get a better idea of how it feels before it stops happening. “Pretty much, yeah,” he says, and trails off.

Lalli hums. But he doesn’t let go, even as their ice cream turns into soup. (Lalli always gets salted liquorice instead of something normal like caramel, and then he dumps whatever he doesn’t finish into Emil’s and it’s disgusting and _this keeps happening._) His eyes are tracking something across the square again. This time, Emil realizes that it’s a couple, one of them tugging the other along by her hand as they point at the harbor wall in the distance.

Lalli stands up without warning and tows Emil down the street. He doesn’t seem to have a destination in mind. But he won’t let go. Even when Emil needs to pay for something and kind of needs both hands, Lalli just stops there and cranes his head back to look up at the sky and pretends he doesn’t understand.

-

Most days, Lalli leans on Emil, or uses him as a head rest, or otherwise chooses to exist in Emil’s space. He sprawls out with his legs over Emil’s lap, draped half over the side of the sofa, or squints at the cat across the room with his chin on Emil’s shoulder. He’ll press his face into the side of Emil’s neck and huff a sigh more often than he will kiss Emil’s cheek or forehead.

It feels right. Even if it involves Lalli sitting on couches in increasingly odd ways while Emil reads to him.

-

Lalli doesn’t say when he likes things, really. You have to infer from context. Even if you ask him outright, he acts noncommittal. Expressing anything stronger tends to devolve into shrugs.

“They’re okay,” he says, on the subject of Mikkel’s cookies. They are, as far as Emil can tell, one of Lalli’s favorite baked goods.

It seems like it’s a Finnish thing. Emil is starting to consider himself an expert in such matters. The only difference between the two is that Onni scowls more. Tuuri was a tragic exception to the rule.

-

In his defense, he doesn’t know the Finnish words for it.

Asking Lalli how seems like it would be too obvious, too horrifically awkward to bear contemplating. Asking Lalli’s surly cousin would be worse. Asking anyone would be mortifying, at this point. Sigrun? Mortifying. Mikkel? Emil’s learned his lesson. The random skald he’ll never see again at the library down the road? _Absolutely not_.

Lalli hasn’t asked, either. That Emil knows of. So it’s probably not relevant. Which is fine! “Vi är vänner!” Emil had said – maybe too enthusiastically - months ago. With Tuuri there facilitating things, Lalli had screwed up his face and replied, “Olemme…ystäviä,” and promptly attempted to sneak out the window of the tank before Tuuri could assign him more vocabulary to learn. Or possibly to escape the sunny force of Emil’s unrelenting grin.

The memory probably shouldn’t make Emil feel as warm and bashful as it does. When he brings it up to Lalli one night with a fond smile, Lalli soberly pats him on the head and goes back to fishing. But it’s the most important thing. “My friend,” is what Emil always says, because it matters and it’s _right_, no matter how Sigrun raises her eyebrows. Lalli is his friend, before and after anything else.

But other things slip out. Emil should realize sooner that Lalli pays attention. Sometimes to odd things, true, but when Emil starts calling Lalli things like sötnos without thinking, during the day, instead of just when they’re both distracted - of course Lalli starts to frown.

“What does that word mean?” Lalli asks, out of the blue, when they’re both on dish-washing duty after dinner.

“Um – that is –”

Emil stammers and falters; Lalli’s eyes narrow in suspicion. Emil knows it’s because usually, when they come across a word or a phrase that they really don’t know how to get across in each other’s language without help, it involves a lot more pantomiming. Even when they get stumped, Emil is usually very eager to translate whenever Lalli expresses interest. Spluttering embarrassment is the exception, not the rule.

He flushes, tries to look very busy washing a bowl, and finally says, “Sweet nose?” with a wince. It’s true. That’s what it means. Literally. He doesn’t actually know anything like the equivalent in Finnish, in the sense that the word is intended. 

If anything, Lalli’s frown only becomes more exasperated with the explanation. “This is – like the weird cat name?” he says, and that is an insult to the good name of Maja Gräddnos, which is _cream _nose and so completely different, obviously, and by the time their debate escalates into flicking each other with soapy water, Emil is just relieved that he said sötnos that time and not something like älskling or hjärtanskär. If Lalli asked about one of those, Emil wouldn’t know what to say at all.

So of course, as soon as Emil becomes hyperaware of the issue, he proceeds to let both of those slip out in one night. His mouth doesn’t really have an off switch. Highly inconvenient. Maybe it wouldn’t be so obvious if he didn’t catch himself and freeze, chagrined, each time. Lalli doesn’t ask, but his suspicious stare drills into the side of Emil’s head all evening long.

Lalli knows ‘like,’ but he’s never asked Emil about ‘love,’ and Emil is abruptly aware that he’s skating on _incredibly thin ice _if Lalli asks anyone else about an incredibly common word. It’s so similar across every language except Finnish that even Reynir might be able to pull it off. And Emil isn’t sure why he’s panicking about this, but now that he’s thoroughly flustered himself, he doesn’t dare say anything.

(He has no idea what Lalli hears in dreams, how the words translate in that dreamy in-between space where they meet every few nights. Neither of them has any control over that. If something Emil says translates too close to the awkward truth, Lalli hasn’t mentioned it or reacted in a way Emil would notice.

They understand each other perfectly in dreams. Which makes it rather useless for learning another language. It’s highly inconvenient.)

The tables turn, eventually. Finnish is a terrible language, but Emil knows the word for pigeon – they taught each other that one in Reykjavik the first time around, so it’s really obvious when Lalli starts calling him that.

“You call me dumb names, too,” Lalli points out, unmoved.

“I don’t call you a messy trash bird, I call you normal things!” Emil retorts, and they bicker about it through the afternoon while Onni stares out the window, resigned.

Lalli’s other choices are…pretty much along the same lines. He’s absolutely taking revenge. Then again, for Hotakainens, ‘dumb’ and ‘weird’ appear to act as affectionate filler words. Onni is only semi-useful as a potential translator when he’s in the vicinity. Emil is inclined to blame him for half of the weird misunderstandings that happen when they try to get him to help as a shortcut to avoid dragging out the dictionaries.

Emil flops down on the couch, arm flung over his face as he fumes. “Höpönassu,” Lalli says, serenely, and pats Emil on the head until Emil feels marginally better about his life. Grumbling, Emil lifts his head so Lalli can sit down and pet his hair properly.

“Must you two do this in front of me?” Onni demands, strained.

-

Silly face.

This is definitely a Finnish thing.

-

“Emil, you know all of three Finnish people,” Siv says, exasperated, after Emil expounds at length about his trials and travails. “Your experiences are not universal.”

-

Lalli laces his fingers in between Emil’s, pressing his hand down against the bed. Emil feels each shift of Lalli’s weight against his stomach like a hook tugging in his chest. He kisses Lalli’s neck to keep his mouth occupied, but the longer Lalli rocks against him the more often Emil has to stop just to suck in air that won’t fill his lungs, gasping out babbled nonsense in between Lalli’s name. After a while Lalli barely has to move, and Emil will still shudder like he’s been shot, his fingers twitching as Lalli grasps his shuddering hand tighter. Lalli watches afterward, chin on Emil’s chest, eyes half-closed and indolent as he watches Emil’s face.

It’s hardly fair. Lalli _likes_ drawing things out until Emil is a broken mess. Emil is _positive_. When Emil kisses his way down, hands on Lalli’s waist, Lalli bites down on his own forearm to strangle any sound. Lalli doesn’t like being pinned down. But there’s a spot just under his ribs and another along his hip, and when Emil first tentatively licks it and then carefully bites, Lalli almost shoves him away with how hard he convulses.

Lalli’s bites leave sharp, crescent scabs at irregular intervals along his own arm with how hard he clamps down. Lalli just shrugs when an appalled Emil worries and apologizes over them. “You didn’t do it,” he says, rolling his eyes. He leans his head against Emil’s shoulder to wait out the rest of the fretting, and dozes off. 

-

In the end, Emil can’t even blame it on dream space. He’s less lucid, sometimes, depending on the night, and if they fall into the pattern of his old dream he often repeats the dream’s script in a daze. He gets rambling and incoherent, and it's unfair that even Reynir doesn't seem to have this issue.

But – “Yes, älskling,” he says at breakfast, and this must be the last straw, because Lalli marches right to the bookshelf and throws down the dictionary on the floor between them like a gauntlet.

Emil freezes.

After the pause stretches too long, Lalli snatches the book back up and stalks off to yank on Mikkel’s sleeve.

“Uhhh huh. Good luck with that,” Reynir says, unsympathetically. As if he understands even half of what anyone says around here.

Emil smacks his forehead and groans.

-

Whatever gets communicated, Lalli is frowning by the time Emil finds the fishing dock that night. The trees around the pond seem thicker than usual, with a dull, purple cast to the light. Usually this place is stuck somewhere between spring and summer; now, Emil half expects the leaves to fall off the trees and give way to winter. Emil pushes a low-hanging branch out of the way, grumbling, and walks down to where Lalli sits crisscross at the end of the pier.

Lalli just nods in greeting, though, like everything is normal. Emil sits down and rubs his arm self-consciously as he glances around the dream. There are no clouds – the light here doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the perpetual, starry night sky that marks these dreams – but the overcast sensation makes him feel like he should be wearing a heavier coat. It’s not even cold; it just _feels_ like it should be.

“You like me,” Lalli says, at last. Like it’s something Emil has been trying to hide, which – he hasn’t! Except that Lalli isn’t the most communicative of people, and maybe he just wants this. Just them together as friends, sharing a bed, without calling it anything else. Anything he wants - Emil is fine with that.

Emil can feel the blush burning all over his face. It’s only going to get worse the longer he sits here with Lalli staring him down. He rubs the back of his neck and glances down into the dark water. “Ah, um. Yes. I love you.” His voice sounds entirely too wistful toward the end there, and Emil forces himself to sound lighter. “But - hey, I’m just glad I get to spend time with you!” he says, with a chuckle, and smiles lopsidedly at Lalli.

Lalli’s face is blank. He stares at Emil, and the only hint of any kind of reaction is in the way he seems to stare _through _Emil, eyes just a fraction too wide. Stricken.

Emil blinks, and Lalli is gone. So is the fishing pond. He’s alone on a couch, the sounds of his old nanny bustling in the kitchen just audible through the doorway. Without someone else here to focus on, the familiar tug of the dream is almost impossible to shake off. He can just sit here, the rude lump of a person he used to be, and pretend he doesn’t feel a sick, nauseous anxiety cramping in his stomach.

He drifts awake, bleary-eyed. The blankets are kicked back on the other side of the bed.

In his experience, leaving Lalli alone for weeks doesn’t actually help resolve anything – Tuuri’s advice wasn’t always the best. Emil stumbles out to the landing at the top of the stairs.

He stops there. The fire is still going downstairs, the flickering light visible around the corner, and he can hear the low murmur of someone talking. Onni, then Lalli, both too low for him to make out the words.

-

_Your mind is too susceptible to feelings and empathy_, Lalli said. _It makes you vulnerable._

But this is fine. They’re best friends. Even if Lalli only says it every so often, even if he never wants anything more – the thought of losing that upsets him on a visceral level. Lalli is reserved for a reason. Emil is the one who oversteps, who has to check before he makes an ass of himself. Which he probably has.

The last thing he wants is to make Lalli uncomfortable. To be something Lalli feels like he has to put up with. Emil already weathered that on the expedition, when he was the only one who seemed to notice Lalli sitting alone every day, and he’d rather not go back to that point where Lalli wouldn’t even look at him.

Onni glares at him all the next day – the Hotakainen glare, all piercing squint, full of reproach - while Lalli is conspicuously absent. It’s not like it’s unusual; sometimes Lalli vanishes to scout a circuit of the valley and is gone for hours. No one else is concerned. Emil tried to hike out after him once, ages ago, and eventually slogged back covered in mud and sweat. Emil hunches his shoulders and ignores Reynir when he asks why he’s brooding _now_.

He goes out back to sit on the ancient metal bench by the fence – and yes, to brood, okay! – and watches the occasional figure pass between the turf houses down the winding path. After a while he sinks lower on the bench, tilts his head back, and stares broodingly at the wispy clouds overhead.

He wakes up when someone kicks his foot. Lalli sits down while Emil blinks and self-consciously fixes his rumpled hair and jacket. He glances at Lalli, but Lalli’s expression is closed off. Maybe faintly downcast.

There’s a soft ache in his chest. Lalli probably won’t pull away if Emil leans over. But it might also just get him an elbow in the side, if Lalli is still upset. It's a toss-up. Just existing in quiet proximity to Lalli is enough to satisfy the quiet craving. Emil isn’t sure if he should risk it.

They both sigh at the same time.

Then Lalli stands. He looks expectantly down at Emil. When that doesn’t work, he grasps Emil’s hand and tugs until Emil gets up and follows him inside – where they’re promptly scolded for missing dinner and cajoled into sitting at the table to eat. Lalli pushes his food around his plate with a look of supreme disinterest. Emil has to eat one-handed, because Lalli refuses to let go, but he's fairly adept at this by now. He hasn't spilled something on his lap in ages.

Lalli pulls him upstairs once he's done. But he slows every few steps and peeks back at Emil, brows knitted together, anxious. Then he continues on. Emil is feeling less off-balance now - Lalli came back, so it'll be alright - and it helps if he focuses on parsing Lalli's odd mood. When they get to the bedroom Lalli makes Emil sit first, adjusting his position with the same deep consideration Lalli gives to his nest of blankets every night. Finally, he sits between Emil's legs, his shoulders hunched forward and his arms stiff as he waits on the edge of the bed, weirdly tense.

Emil kind of wants to hug him. There aren't many other options for his arms when they're sitting together like this, and this is prime hugging territory. But Lalli sits like he might spring back up out of his seat at any moment and start to pace, and Emil stops himself, uncertain.

Lalli glances back at him twice, that weirdly apprehensive look still on his face. The second time, he reaches back and wraps first one of Emil's arms around his stomach, then the other. Another uncertain look, and he presses his arms over Emil's. Emil squeezes carefully, and takes that as permission to bury his face in Lalli's hair for a second. He can feel the line of Lalli's spine pressed against his chest, and it paradoxically makes the ache worse. The last thing he wants right now is to hug Lalli too tight and have him wiggle away.

But Lalli seems to want this right now, so surely it's okay. It's always nice, being able to hold Lalli.

After a few minutes, Lalli starts to squirm, restless. Emil tries to let go, and Lalli clamps down on his arms again. He tucks his legs up for good measure, so that he’s folded around Emil’s arms, his toes hanging over the side of the mattress. "No," he insists. "How do you say – ‘I like you’?"

But that's not what he's asking. He already knows how to say that, just by piecing it together from the grammar he already has. Emil flushes. For how many times he's said it, without thinking, of course this happens when he's put on the spot. "…'I love you,'" he says, in a rushed mumble. Which isn’t up to standard. Lalli tosses his head, and Emil hastily straightens his shoulders and clears his throat to repeat it without mumbling.

Lalli cocks his head to the side as he listens. Emil can’t see what face he’s making from here.

“…Love you,” Lalli says, in Swedish, like he’s just repeating it back.

It still takes Emil a second. When it hits, it’s a little bit like being punched by the sun.

He beams. Lalli whines as Emil pitches over sideways, dragging him down for the ride. “_You _said it!” Emil laughs. It comes out maybe a little more triumphant than it should.

"Don't be weird! I'm not saying it again!" Lalli protests. When Emil lifts his head, still beaming, Lalli’s eyes are scrunched up. He clutches Emil’s arms almost defensively, like he expects Emil to roll them right out the window or something. Which probably means this is a bit much. Emil relaxes his grip a little, Lalli relaxes slightly – then goes completely limp in his arms, like a melted puddle of cat. He uncurls his legs, but doesn’t make a move to roll away.

Emil kisses Lalli’s cheek and then settles back, content, the lazy sun warm in his chest. "Haha, that's okay. I'm happy just to hear you say it once!" he says, still flushed. "I know that you don’t say these things, just - let me know when that _stops_ being a thing, I guess?"

It really would be the height of mortification, Emil thinks, to keep pushing Lalli after it becomes – unwelcome.

Lalli’s torso tenses; Emil can feel it where Lalli is currently pinning one of Emil’s arms under his side. He’s not sure what he said that set it off.

But Lalli just makes an aborted move to look back, before sighing. "Stupid Emil,” he mutters. “Sydänkäpy. Rakkaani.”

Now he’s absolutely doing that on purpose. Emil can tell. “You can’t get me so easily. _I _am perfectly fine with unfathomable words of endearment,” he says, with a haughty sniff, as he focuses intently on memorizing that first one. He’s learned the hard way that he only has room in his brain to regurgitate a set number of new Finnish nonsense words at a time before he starts jumbling them up and losing his head completely. Especially if he tries to remember them overnight. “I accept you and your terror of a language as you are, out of the goodness of my heart -”

Lalli snorts, stretches up, and plops a pillow on top of Emil’s head. “Go to sleep.”

-

Heart…pine cone.

Emil sighs, and closes the dictionary.


End file.
